1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a data processing device and a data processing method for retrieving image data such as scanned data for storage in a specified format.
2. Description of Related Arts
The multiple functions of recent scanners have increased user's freedom of specifying the saving format for scanned data generated by these scanners. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-146486 discloses an MVP capable of dividing a document image into small objects such as texts, illustrations, photographs, and tables by means of vector-scanning, and storing them in an user's specified file format for each object type.
In this context, various efforts have been made for effective use of scanned data, most of recent scanners are provided with a function to retrieve scanned data in JPEG format for storage in a specified file format such as Microsoft Word (registered trademark) and Microsoft Excel (registered trademark). These scanners are capable of receiving user's designation of a file format for storage, but their data storage operation will only result in random relocation of the scanned data within the designated format file. For example, if Excel is designated as a storage file format, the entire scanned data will be stored into a single spreadsheet (See FIG. 18). Consequently, the user will inevitably go through relocation of the scanned data within the file if he/she intends to make its effective use, and this means that user's burden in retrieving scanned data for storage has not been reduced as much as desired.